Final Day - Product Showcase

After Tuesday's big show in the main hall, we transferred our equipment to the product showcase area and set it all up again. We are feeling like roadies for a touring band!

We spent the afternoon and the next day presenting information regarding our toolkit to the dealers as they passed by our booth. Some of them had some good questions, and spoke about some interesting features that we had not thought about. Most were interested in when it will be available to them.

At 3:00PM we packed up and headed back home to Orange County.

I will be publishing an internal document (not on this blog) regarding common questions, features, etc. that were mentioned at the show.

This blog is now complete.

Show Time...Success

Today was the opening show. Our demos executed flawlessly. Shinichi and I are most grateful to our team members for the support we have received these last few weeks when we were preparing for this moment. Ed McLaughlin did a fine job of bantering with the Microsoft guy as they both hyped OSA, and workflow, and then stepped through the demo. Afterwards, Ed asks..."So how many other MFP manufacturers are you working with for integrations like this?" And the answer is ZERO!

The show ended with a special guest speaker, Chris Gardner. He is the person that the movie The Pursuit of Happiness is modelled after. He gave a terrific talk and was both very moving and hilarious at the same time.

After the main show, we worked the floor show. I overheard an industry analyst absolutely gushing to Ginger about how great OSA and ODAL are, and how it places us way ahead of the competition. Additionally, we have heard several dealers tell us that although their Sharp machines are more expensive, and offer less performance than their competitors, it is OSA capabilities that seal the deal. It is their opinion that anything we do with OSA (Workflow), will help them sell their products.

Tonight we are on our own for entertainment. I will be seeing the Blue Man Group show.

Once again, I say thanks to all that have supported us!

Stage Show Rehearsal

We spent most of the day in the large hall where the main show will take place tomorrow, helping with the rehearsal. The president of Sharp Document Solutions Corporation of America(SDSCA), Ed McLaughlin, did many run-throughs of our demo. The software performed perfectly. It was good to see.

OSA is for real, and they are really pushing it. The show registration was done using four Pastel machines, each running an OSA based registration application. The dealer enters his personal info, and the MFP prints out his badge. It was pretty cool.

The stage show hypes the fact that OSA can integrate "seamlessly" with .NET 3.0, Vista, Workflow, and XPS. And our ODAL product is an important part. I think they did a good job of stressing the important points.

Tonight there is a big shin-dig at a nightclub here in the hotel, exclusively for the Dealers and us. It should be a good time.

Travel and Set Up Day

An uneventful flight and a short taxi ride brought us to the Venitian Hotel, arriving at about 12:30PM. Shinichi and I went to set up, but the basic setup (network and power) were not ready for us. So we went to our rooms and relaxed for a few hours.

Reporting again at 3:00PM we proceeded to perform our set up duties. The decision was made to go with the XPS version of the Pastel firmware, so I was able to upgrade the machine with some help from Tanna. My initial tests did not succeed...the email was not being received by the client. After some thinking, we realized that the email server property in the SmtpEmail activity was faulty, using our computer name from Huntington Beach. I changed it to the newly assigned IP address and we were in business!
Another close call came after the fellow from New Jersey installed his driver software to support the huge display screen that will be used on stage. After rebooting, it failed to show a valid desktop...twice. After the third reboot, it was working properly.

After getting things set up, there were a few dry runs with the SDSCA people. The actual rehearsal is tomorrow. All systems are go!

Prologue

I will be travelling to Las Vegas for the 2007 SDSCA National Dealer Meeting (NDM) on Sunday, February 4, 2007.



My duties are to provide technical support for the Open Document Automation Library (ODAL) demonstration featuring our Workflow application. It will be given at the General Session on Tuesday. I will also be supporting the the same demonstration as part of the Product Showcase on Tuesday and Wednesday.


The event is being held at the Venitian hotel, and I will be staying there as well.

Upon Sunday's arrival, I will be setting up the demo in the main ballrroom.


Check back Monday morning to see how the setup for the ODAL demo went.